M., Simon – Smoo! #2

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Smoo! #2

Ah, the quiet, contemplative comic.  They seem to be harder to come by these days, although that could be my imagination, or perhaps just my lousy memory.  This one is a series of short pieces that all more or less blend together.  Things start with Simon needing a change and going for the easiest one: haircut and growing a beard.  Stories after that include visiting a stranger’s grave, exaggerating your qualities while telling stories about yourself to strangers, the nature of time and worrying about the future, the inability to really remove yourself from the world, Simon’s sudden memory of killing a small wounded animal as a child as something he thought of as a kindness, and the brief space right after a fight with a girlfriend when things could go in any of a number of directions.  The stories have more variety than you might think from those basic descriptions, as Simon regularly populates stories with images and/or demons from his mind.  The art is quietly impressive without being overbearing, as it seems simple enough until you really start to pick at it, then you can see that there’s plenty going on.  None of that lazy, “I’ll just skip the backgrounds” nonsense going on here.  Anyway, it’s worth a look, although it’s always at least mildly worrisome when the most recent book from somebody was done over a year ago.  Or worrisome to me at least, as it seems like minis build up a momentum of their own and once they’re left alone for too long that momentum never comes back.  No price, but let’s go with $3 for no reason.